Questioning
is at the heart of critical thinking, so you want to create an environment
where intellectual curiosity is fostered and questions are encouraged. For
Jared Kushida, who teaches a global politics class called War and Peace at KIPP
King Collegiate, "lecturing" means integrating a flow of questions
throughout a lesson. "I rarely go on for more than 30 seconds without
asking a question, and I rarely stop at that one question," he explains.

In the
beginning stages, you may be doing most of the asking to show your students the
types of questions that will lead to higher-level thinking and understanding.
You can also use "wrong" answers as opportunities to explore your
students' thinking. Then ask more questions to lead them in a different
direction. As students become more comfortable and skilled, their questions
will drive the class discussions.

2. Start with a prompt and help them unpack it.

Pose a
provocative question to build an argument around and help your students break
it down. Identify any ambiguous or subjective terms and have students clarify
and define them. For example, Katie Kirkpatrick, who teaches ninth-grade Speech
& Composition at KIPP King Collegiate, poses this question in the first
unit of her class: "Is a life in poverty the responsibility of the
individual or a result of outside factors?" She guides her class to
identify "responsibility of the individual" and "result of
outside factors" as what she calls "shady terms" that need
definition. Once the terms are clearly defined, students are better able to
seek and find evidence that is relevant to their argument.

3. Provide tools for entering the conversation.

At the
beginning of the year, Kirkpatrick gives her students a list of sentence
starters and connectors such as "I agree/disagree because," "I
can connect to your statement because," and "Can you clarify what you
mean by." Providing them with these words gives them ways to enter the
conversation and will guide their thought process in analyzing the argument.

4. Model your expectations.

"It
all comes back to modeling," says Kellan McNulty, who teaches AP world
history and AP U.S. history at KIPP King Collegiate. "If you have a
behavioral expectation, the best way to teach that is to model." In fact,
he learned how to facilitate effective Socratic discussions by observing his
colleague. Similarly, he demonstrates for his students ways to enter a
conversation, the difference between an analytical point and a summary, and
appropriate ways to disagree with one another. Kirkpatrick uses examples, both
good and bad, of people presenting arguments and having Socratic discussions
from sites such as YouTube. Some sample links include:

Persuasive
Speech

Narrative
Speech

Informative
Speech

Teacher-facilitated
Socratic discussion

Student-led
Socratic seminar

5. Encourage constructive controversy.

Lively
discussions usually involve some degree of differing perspectives. McNulty even
uses a "devil's advocate" card that he secretly gives to a student
before each discussion, charging him or her with the role of bringing up
opposing views. You can give students controversial topics and let them hash it
out, but make sure to first demonstrate for them respectful ways of disagreeing
and establish clear rules for voicing different perspectives. These rules
include the language to use when disagreeing and that the disagreement must be
objective, such as finding a flaw in the evidence or the reasoning, not a
subjective disagreement based on personal opinions.

6. Choose content students will invest in.

It's
important to choose topics that are relevant and significant to students to get
them talking and engaged. Kirkpatrick wanted social justice to be the
overarching theme for her class. The topic struck a chord with the students and
motivated them to build the communication skills they needed to effectively voice
their views. Kushida spends much of his prep time finding rich sources
(including texts, photos, art, even a single word) about pressing, relevant
content to help fuel the discussions. He follows up with a deep arsenal of
questions that range from factual to analytical to connective to philosophical.

7. Set up Socratic discussions.

Socratic
discussion is the method of inquiry in which participants ask one another
questions that test logic with the goal of gaining greater understanding or
clarity. At King, teachers regularly set up formal Socratic discussions to give
students the opportunity to challenge one another intellectually. The teachers
serve primarily as observers, offering prompts only when there is a lull in the
conversation, but otherwise leaving it to the students to keep the discussion
moving. They strive to engage students in Socratic dialogue informally as well.
Kushida explains that he works Socratic questioning in every single day by
"never being satisfied with a student answer that does not result in
another question and always pushing and counterquestioning and teaching them to
do the same."

8. Assess their reasoning through different methods.

To know
whether your students are learning to think critically, you need a window into
their thought processes. So challenge them to communicate back to you. Essays,
Socratic discussions, and speeches give students the chance to demonstrate
their skill and allow you to evaluate their reasoning in a variety of
situations. Even written tests can foster critical thinking if they require the
student to provide counterarguments to a series of statements using details and
evidence from the unit of study. You can also assign your students topics to
research and then let them lead the classroom discussion. Doing so will help
you assess their understanding of the material and their skill at communicating
it.

9. Let students evaluate each other.

It can be
difficult to assess students while simultaneously facilitating a Socratic
discussion. But one way teachers at King give some of the responsibility to the
students is by setting up the room in a "fishbowl" configuration,
with an inner circle and an outer circle. Students in the inner circle are the
active participants while those in the outer are their peer evaluators.
Kirkpatrick, McNulty, and others at King use a Socratic seminar rubric that
clearly lays out the components of analytical thinking so the students know
exactly what to look for. And by evaluating their peers with the same rubric
the teacher uses, students gain a better understanding of the criteria for
strong critical thinking and discussion.

10. Step back.

It can be
hard for a teacher to let go of the reins and let the students do the teaching.
"But when you remove yourself from the equation," McNulty explains,
"that really forces the kids to step up." And when you give students
the responsibility to be the thinkers in the class and drive the content, they
may take it in unexpected directions that are more relevant to them and are thus
more likely to stick.